PowerScout Introduces First AI Enabled Messenger Chatbot for Home Solar

PowerScout’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of solar, thus saving homeowners thousands of dollars on energy while helping to mitigate climate change. We offer multiple free calculators and tools that allow someone, in 1-2 minutes, to figure out how many panels their home would need and how much they could save by switching to solar.

As much as we love when people come to our site, we realize there are many other places where they spend their time. The average American spends nearly an hour each day on Facebook. For this reason, we adapted our powerful solar calculator to work as a Facebook Messenger chatbot. We wanted to meet people where they are and allow them to get reliable solar estimates while using the Messenger Platform. This is the first ever clean energy use case of a chatbot.

How Does it Work?

Messenger users simply need to start a message with PowerScout on Facebook and our chatbot will help them figure out if installing solar is right for their home and estimate the amount of solar panels they would need, associated costs, and expected savings.

After clicking ‘Get Started’, the chatbot will walk them through, first estimating the savings from adopting solar panels and then helping get multiple quotes from reliable local installers:

The beauty of using a chatbot is that it can intelligently converse with the user. In the case of an incomplete address given, the chatbot will ask for the appropriate information to get a complete address.

After the chatbot has the correct address, it will use PowerScout’s artificial intelligence algorithms to get a solar savings estimate for the user. This is a complex calculation that involves analyzing satellite imagery of each individual roof, sensor data from low-flying aircrafts, weather data especially the amount of sunshine, shading from nearby trees and structures, estimated electric consumption for the home and local utility electricity prices. Through proprietary algorithms, PowerScout is able to generate this estimate in seconds, customized for each home.

After the calculations are done, the user is given a solar report snapshot right within Messenger. It will also show them which homes in their neighborhood already have solar panels on them, demonstrating a social validation of solar adoption in that neighborhood – important for many users thinking about adopting solar.

In roughly 1-2 minutes, people can quickly figure out if solar is right for them and how much they could save. From here on, they can opt to have PowerScout connect them with multiple top local installers to get custom quotes.

By leveraging the power of AI-driven chatbots and the sustainable affordable power of solar energy, we hope to save people time, thousands of dollars on utility bills, increase their home value and significantly reduce their carbon footprint.

The chatbot is currently available for a quick solar assessment in 15 states. In four States, CA, MA, NJ, NY PowerScout has partnered with a network of high quality installation service providers.

About PowerScout

Founded by data analytics veterans and backed by the US Department of Energy, PowerScout is a data-driven marketplace for residential rooftop solar. PowerScout enables customers to purchase with confidence by providing competitive bids from a curated list of best-in-class installation and financing service providers. PowerScout leverages artificial intelligence and 100 billion data points to model savings, home value and carbon footprint impact on the US residential housing stock.

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Estimated savings are based on a projected annual utility rate increase of 3.5% over the life of the
system. Actual pricing and savings will vary and is not guaranteed. Savings depends on several
factors, including product type, system production, system size, geography, weather, shade,
electricity usage, full utilization of all available tax credits and rebates by the system owner,
and utility rate structures and rate increases.